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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

More Than a Band of Brothers

While the paratroopers tend to get heaps of attention when we think about D-Day, this Band of Brothers was more than just the 101st or the 82nd. While Omaha was the toughest beach, the others were not so easy. This video (h/t to Stephane Roussel on fb, a noted tank aficionado) provides a short illustration that this Band was quite big and quite multinational:

Update: The Army site on Normandy makes it clear that the selection bias towards paratroops is not entirely unwarranted. That is, four US divisions (in addition to the Brits, Canadians and Poles)--two infantry (1st and 4th ID's) and two paratroop (82nd and 101st). On the other hand, other tales of the war, such as the Battle of the Bulge focus almost entirely on the 101st, when the gravestones I saw nearby clearly show that many, many units had a role to play.

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Stephen M. Saideman

Intro

Greetings! I am a political scientist, specializing in International Relations, my research and teaching focus on ethnic conflict and civil-military relations. I watch way too much TV, and I like movies as well so I tend to write about both and find IR stuff in pop culture. I rant alot about American politics and sometimes about Canadian politics. I like to take ideas I once learned a long time ago and apply them to whatever strikes my fancy.